I have heard about this car in that scene but never been able to find it (realize now that's because i have the dvd, haha) but thanks. I was beginning to think people had just made it up or got mixed up with the chimney.

The car was there in the theatrical run as well as on the Academy DVD (which of course none of us had...) :)

Right now, it can be spotted in the bonus materials of FOTR SEE, in the bonus feature "Music of Middle-Earth". There, the scene is unaltered.

The smoke you see in the background in fact does not belong to the car. The only thing which gives the car away is a fast-moving lightspot which is a reflection of sunlight on the car's windshield. This spot moves fast from the right to the left.

It's hard to spot on my screenshot but the arrow pointing to it is actually accurate for this frame. :)

PS: for those who didn't get the joke: the car below is from Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste", and is driven by Derek (played by PJ himself) in the film. henneth-annun.ru

I heard about the car even when it was still in theatrical release. I strained my eyes every time I watched FOTR, and still couldn't see it. I did spot the smoke from the chimney and recognized it as such; I thought people had mistaken that for the car until I heard PJ admit that there was in fact a car which was removed from the DVD.

I saw it in the initial theatrical release several times and on a pirated copy taken from the academy version a few months later. Once the dvd came out I ditched my pirate copy and lo and behold, the car had vanished! "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities."